A man was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison on Monday for mailing ricin to President Obama and other officials in the latest turn through the legal maze involving a martial arts instructor, an Elvis impersonator and a plea deal that was again on after the defendant initially pleaded guilty and then changed his mind.

Pleading not guilty usually works better when you haven't already pleaded guilty. Then again, normalcy has yet to visit the Mississippi ricin saga.
In a federal court Tuesday, one of America's weirdest continuing criminal cases added another bizarre...

The deafening blast 50 feet behind Boston Marathon runner Tami Hughes jolted her right back to Sept. 11, 2001.
"In the three seconds that it took me to turn around [last Monday], at first I'm like, 'Oh God, did a plane crash into a building?'" said...

A terror bombing at the Boston Marathon, an explosion at a Texas fertilizer factory and tainted mail in Washington, D.C. have made for an unsettling week. Throw in anniversaries of some of America's most tragic and traumatic days -- Virginia Tech,...

NAACP employees were going through the mail Thursday at national headquarters in Baltimore when they found a strange-looking envelope. It bore no return address and had a Memphis, Tenn., postmark — just like letters to President Barack Obama and a...

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This month has been one big hazmat spill. An Elvis impersonator from Mississippi was arrested and later released after letters containing the deadly poison ricin were mailed to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a judge. On the other side of the globe, sandwiches spiked with rat or mouse poison were eaten by workers for a German car-parts company, leaving dozens scared but apparently uninjured. Meanwhile, concerns grew that the Syrian government may be using chemical weapons in its war against...

A Mississippi martial arts teacher tried to throw away ricin-tainted materials and had a manual about the poison on his computer, according to a federal affidavit unsealed Tuesday.
James Everett Dutschke, 41, of Tupelo, Miss., was charged Saturday with having and/or making ricin and sending poison-laced letters to President Obama, a U.S. senator and a local judge. Ricin is deadly in small doses, and there is no antidote. It can be inhaled, injected or ingested.
The charges came after one of Dutschke'...

OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) - Federal authorities on Wednesday arrested a man charged with mailing a letter containing the deadly poison ricin to a U.S. district judge in Spokane, Washington, the FBI said.
Investigators have no information to suggest the Spokane envelope is related to a batch of ricin-tainted letters addressed to President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials and intercepted last month, an FBI spokeswoman in Seattle said.
The suspect in the Spokane case, Matthew Ryan Buquet, 37, made...

As federal officials plunged into yet another investigation over ricin-laced letters sent to public officials, court documents reveal peculiarities about another recent poison-by-mail case.
James Everett Dutschke, 41, a taekwondo instructor, remains jailed in Lafayette County, Miss., while facing federal charges of manufacturing the poison ricin. He has previously stated his innocence and is reportedly awaiting the findings of grand jury; his attorney could not be reached for comment.
Officials...

A Mississippi man who tried to frame an Elvis Presley impersonator has pleaded guilty to sending threatening letters laced with the toxin ricin to President Obama and other officials, the Justice Department said Friday.
James Everett Dutschke, 42, entered the plea during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Oxford, Miss. He will receive a sentence of 25 years in prison, authorities said.
According to court documents, Dutschke developed a scheme to frame Paul Kevin Curtis by mailing the poisoned,...

A taekwondo instructor in Tupelo, Miss., has been indicted -- for the second time -- on suspicion of trying to frame an Elvis impersonator in a case involving a poison-filled letter to a U.S. official.
This time James Everett Dutschke, 42, is accused of trying to carry out a plot from jail, according to a superseding indictment filed Wednesday in federal court in Mississippi.
The story of Dutschke's feud with the Elvis impersonator, Paul Kevin Curtis, became national headline fodder in April after...